


in the violence of our dreams

by redbelles



Category: Jesus Christ Superstar - All Media Types, Jesus Christ Superstar - Webber/Rice
Genre: Biblical References, Character Death, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbelles/pseuds/redbelles
Summary: It was beautiful but now it's sour.





	in the violence of our dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SegaBarrett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/gifts).



It’s lonely on the mountain. 

The sun scorches down from a clear sky, endlessly blue. Rock slips beneath his feet as he makes his way down the slope. The descent should not be treacherous; perhaps his anger runs deeper than he thought. 

Evening has spread out across the valley by the time he makes his way back to the meager shelter of the cave. The air smells like dust and sweat and fresh bread. Mary stands by the cookfire, the twelve scattered lazily across the cool of the stone floor, useless as they always are at mealtime. Yeshua is half-hidden in shadow, hands folded as if in prayer. 

Judas holds this secret beneath his tongue like a coin he cannot spend: Yeshua is not praying. 

More and more, the time he once spent in prayer is lost to visions of some future Judas cannot divine. Whatever it is he sees, it is not enough to sway him from his course. _King_ , they call him. _Messiah_. 

Judea is no stranger to prophets, but Rome, oh, Rome looks first to her own power. Perhaps Yeshua believes they are too small to merit a response—a disgruntled minority in a backwater province—the smallest of stones beneath the heel of empire, but it is a fool’s hope. Rome will come with legions. Rome will come for blood. 

The surety of that thought sharpens the anger that walked step by step down the mountainside with him. It roils and surges, rising like bile in his throat. He swallows and turns away, retreating into shadows of his own. There is no point confronting Yeshua now, caught as he is in his strange melancholy.

_Tell me_ , he wants to say. _What burden is so terrible you cannot share it?_

Instead, Judas sits apart. Mary meets his gaze with pity in her eyes as she doles out fresh bread. He accepts his portion with something less than grace, mouth set in a hard flat line. The bread is warm and yeasty, dusted with salt and fresh herbs, the way he likes it best. He resents her for it, this small knowledge of him; she is more perceptive than she should be. 

There is an unspoken tension between them. Yeshua has a flock of eager disciples, men and women who hang on his every word, but it is Judas who was always his closest companion, his trusted right hand. Food, lodging, the challenges of their itinerant lives, he handled all these and more, but it was always Yeshua’s trust he counted as most precious. 

For three long years, he was the repository of Yeshua’s worries, his fears, all the things he could not offer up in prayer. For three years, it was Judas. Judas, until Mary.

She came in a hail of stones. Yeshua had bruises for weeks, mottled dark across his skin. He paid them no mind. Instead, he dried Mary’s tears, brushed the knots from her hair, and took her into his heart as if she had always been there. 

Mary, who listens to his fears and anoints him with sweet-smelling oils. Mary, who watches and sees more than she should. Judas does not want to exchange worried looks with this woman, the only other soul to see how Yeshua is struggling. He does not want the complications she brings, the scrutiny and the judgment.

_They only need a small excuse_ , he thinks. Even the thought is bitter. He tears at the bread, but cannot bring himself to eat it.

“It’s good,” Thomas says to him, gesturing across the cave with a chunk of bread. Judas hums in agreement, though he knows from long experience it will not convince Thomas. A skeptic to his bones, and rightfully so. None of the twelve understand why he cannot take what Mary offers, fresh bread and warm smiles, a pool of calm for Yeshua to sink into at the end of a long day. He hardly understands it himself.

It is nothing so simple as jealousy, the strange animosity that lingers in his heart. Whatever it is, it sings tonight, winding through the air as they finish their meal, as Yeshua frets, as Mary moves to stroke his face.

“Myrrh for your hot forehead,” she croons, and the love in her eyes is boundless, starlit. Blind as the rest of them.

She looks to Yeshua, and Yeshua fixes on some unknowable future; neither of them is aware of the danger. They stand on the edge of a great precipice, swaying dangerously in the wind, and it seems only Judas can see the fall ahead. His heart clatters against his ribs, furious, frightened, and this time he cannot swallow his anger.

It spills out like a flood, sweeping over all of them, Mary and Yeshua and the twelve. They all stare, stricken, and still, he cannot stop.

“Three hundred silver pieces,” he says, incredulous. A king’s ransom, enough to feed the hungry and tend the sick. Enough to bribe the soldiers for another day of peace, to still the tongues of the informants who listen to Yeshua’s speeches and return to their masters with betrayal on their lips. _A radical_ , they say. _He is dangerous._

_Messiah, messiah, messiah._

The Pharisees, the Romans, bandits, thieves— they all circle like wolves. Yeshua and his people are not safe. They have never been safe, but now it seems that Yeshua is beyond such base concerns; he simply does not care.

Judas feels his own anger like the fury of a storm rolling over the mountains. He turns it on Mary, because she is more perceptive than she should be in every way except the one that matters most.

It is everything he said to the sky on the mountain, and still, still they won’t _listen—_

Yeshua’s hand curls around his, warm and callused.

_A carpenter’s hand_ , he thinks, though Yeshua has not worked his father’s trade in years. Despite the rough strength of their grip, Judas can feel him slipping away. There is something terrible in his friend’s eyes, desperate and knowing, and then Mary is there, singing, singing. 

Myrrh chokes him, thick in his lungs, stinging his eyes. Judas struggles for breath as Yeshua looks on. 

His chest aches. He is no stranger to regret, but the pain in Yeshua’s eyes is a weight he cannot begin to fathom. His hand falls away; for the barest sliver of breath, he thinks Yeshua will reach for him. 

The moment passes. There is only the singing, only the smoke.

He is no stranger to regret, but this is something different. The shame of it haunts even as he turns away once more, slipping back into shadow. 

_What are we doing, Yeshua?_

 

...

 

Night passes, burning into dawn.

They follow Yeshua into town. Crowds line the road, cheering and singing. They carpet the rutted dirt with palm fronds, a royal welcome for the man they hail as king. The Pharisees hover like vultures, eyes sharp on Yeshua’s lean figure as he is swallowed up in the throng. Caiaphas watches him the way carrion birds watch a doomed animal: _soon_ , his gaze seems to say. _Soon, this king will be a corpse._

Judas shoves the thought away, but it lurks, hounding his steps as he trails behind the mob. Yeshua preaches for hours, through the cooler heat of early morning and into the sizzle of midday. Sweat beads on his brow and lines of fatigue bracket his mouth. When he finally falls silent, he is shaking. The crowd cheers for him, oblivious, until he retreats. 

Judas means to hustle him to an inn—to shade, at the very least—but Simon has other ideas. He guides them to the ruins of some ancient temple, away from the crowd but still in sight of the Roman guard. There, in the dust and the sun, he lays out a madman’s plan. 

As strong as Rome? Fifty thousand? An army of farmers and fisherman, beggars and whores, against the might of an empire? Simon is worse than a fool; he’s a zealot, ready to sacrifice himself and everyone around him for a dream that will never come to pass. 

He can’t stop the sneer from curling his lips, half derision and half fear, because Yeshua isn’t _saying_ anything, he can’t possibly condone this—

Simon falls silent, waiting. 

Yeshua says their names, each in turn, solemn as a funeral dirge. He does not acknowledge Simon’s idea, and for a moment, Judas remembers how to breathe. A lungful of relief, two, but then, oh but then—

 

...

 

_To conquer death, you only have to die._

 

...

 

Horror is like ice in his veins, chilling him to the bone even as they stand beneath the sear of the afternoon sun.

This is not Yeshua. It cannot be Yeshua.

And yet: it is Yeshua. There is no mistaking the familiar planes of his face, weathered beyond his years by time in the wind and the sun. No mistaking the worn robes, the painful leanness of his ascetic’s frame, the strange, knowing sorrow in his eyes. 

Judas can see it all too clearly now. The knowledge sinks into his heart like a stone, heavy and dark. The blood-soaked future Judas so fears is of no consequence to the man who would usher it in. He stares into eternity and does not flinch from what he sees; rather, he welcomes it.

Yeshua, who listens to Simon, who does nothing to quell the crowd. Yeshua, who does not protest the mantle of king, messiah, son—

Yeshua, who wants to die. 

Judas stands apart. He turns his face from his dearest friend—foreign and frightening now, a stranger wearing Yeshua’s skin—and struggles against the urge to weep.

 

...

 

Yeshua has left him no choice.

Betrayal is a bitter taste in his mouth, coating his tongue with ash and blood, but even still, he knows it for the truth. This is the only course. If the children of Israel are to survive, they cannot draw Rome’s ire. No kings, no whispers of revolt.

It is a decision that leaves him sick with shame, but what does his shame matter? The blood of one man, or the blood of thousands? The choice is no choice at all, no matter how he longs to save Yeshua.

Peter looks at him strangely when he abstains from dinner, retreating instead to the quiet of the shadows. He cannot break bread with Yeshua, knowing what he knows. Judas beds down without a care for his hunger. Mary is singing again. The twelve are gathered around their shepherd, hungry for answers he no longer believes Yeshua has. 

Alone with his shame, Judas reaches for the oblivion of sleep.

It eludes him. Instead, memory creeps in:

They are on the Sea of Galilee, shoulder to shoulder in a ramshackle boat with a tattered sail. There are fisherman among them, but the wind is rising, and a tense silence blankets the group. Waves slap at the hull, cold and fierce. Yeshua is absent: they are alone with the angry sea, small and helpless beneath the darkening sky.

He is dreaming. Yeshua was there, sitting quietly in the boat with the rest of them that day, he’s sure of it. But in the way of dreams, Yeshua is not there now.

“We should head back,” someone calls, struggling to be heard over the keening of the wind. “Surely Yeshua did not mean for us to brave this storm.”

“How can we turn back?” another cries. “We can’t even see the shore.”

Fear is a dark taste on his tongue, a mouthful of blood. Rain stings his face as the voices of the twelve turn to panicked shouts; he is not the only one afraid. The boat heaves once, twice, wood groaning in protest. The mast judders dangerously until someone grows brave enough to stand and haul in the sail. 

“We’ll have to wait it out,” Peter shouts, voice ragged. “It’s too rough for the oars!”

The minutes turn to hours. Night drags on, time lost to the howl of the wind and the roar of the sea. The clouds are low and suffocating, blotting out the stars. The lake has never seemed so vast; they are lost at sea.

_I will make you fishers of men_ , Yeshua said once, but Yeshua is not here. There is no one to save them. 

No one, until a figure emerges from the storm, wrapped in a mantle of calm, shining in the darkness. He strides across the waves as though through a summer meadow, unafraid of the storm raging around him. 

“What are you?” the twelve cry out, lost, frightened. 

_No_ , Judas thinks. _Can’t you see?_

“Do you not recognize me?” His gaze sweeps across his chosen, men huddled like scared children, and lingers on Judas. The wind dies away. The waves subside.

“Be not afraid,” Yeshua says. His voice is quiet. It does not comfort the twelve; they cower from this strange miracle, from this man who commands the storm, who walks on water and tells them to abandon their fear. 

But Judas, oh, Judas is not afraid. He scrambles to his feet, heedless of his stiff muscles or the rain-slick deck. He lurches to the rail and reaches for him. Yeshua’s hand is cold. Drops of water run down his face, rain carving trails like freshwater tears. Judas hauls him into the boat, tucking him beneath the shelter of his arm. Yeshua shivers, and that is all it takes for the twelve to remember that he is flesh and blood. They spring into action, moving to the oars, pulling for shore, apologizing, apologizing over and over—

“We did not know you, Lord. We didn’t know you.”

 

...

 

He wakes from the dream with salt on his lips, tears instead of rain.

 _I knew you then_ , he thinks, aching and alone. _But you are a stranger now, Yeshua. Where have you gone?_

The fire has burned to embers. Shadows fill the cave, but there is enough light left, just enough, to see Yeshua stir. His eyes are dark; they burn through Judas, that strange sorrow, that _knowing—_

Mary is singing in the distance, singing, singing. The words drift in like smoke, _I don’t know how to love him, I don’t know why he moves me. He’s a man; he’s just a man._

He should turn away. Tear his gaze from Yeshua’s, shut his ears to Mary’s song. Instead, he burns. Instead, he licks the salt from his lips, watches Yeshua’s eyes as they trail over his face as if committing it to memory. 

_Don’t you know me, Yeshua?_

The salt, the ache, the slow slide of his fingers under that burning gaze— 

 

...

 

None of it eases the guilt.

 

...

 

Dawn breaks.

Judas eats his bread in silence, and does not meet Yeshua’s eyes. What does it matter now, to break his own vow. Surely Yeshua knows.

The bread is fresh; Mary slept less than he did. She squeezes his shoulder as he passes by, headed for high priest’s house. He does not need to meet her eyes to know what her face holds. The song echoes in his ears. It is comforting.

It is damning.

Caiaphas and Annas welcome him with thinly-veiled derision. To them, he is nothing more than a starving peasant, foolish and greedy, eager to turn Yeshua’s misfortune to his own gain. To them, he is nothing more than a tool.

Thirty silver pieces. Blood money. It rattles in the pouch as it hits the ground. A paltry sum, held up against the cost of Mary’s ointment. Is Yeshua’s life worth so little?

_He knows_ , Judas tells himself. _He’s known longer than I have._

Perhaps Judas has always been someone’s tool.

“A fee, nothing more,” Caiaphas intones. 

The sour taste in his mouth is betrayal; whose, he knows longer knows. He never thought it would come to this: a life weighed out and waiting in the dust. Thirty silver pieces, payment for services rendered. He bends down, trailing his fingers through the sand, head bowed low. When he looks up, the sun is blinding. The Pharisees are shadows against the sky. Their darkness falls over him like a shroud. 

Whisper soft, he lets Yeshua go.

 

...

 

He will break bread with Yeshua one last time. One last supper, bread and wine and prayer, and then he’ll slip away. The olive grove is thick with trees. The leaves rustle in the wind, blowing warm and sweet as Yeshua and the twelve settle themselves in the shade. It is a peaceful day. No need for spectacle.

No need at all; that is what he tells himself, until Yeshua pauses, appalled at himself. He speaks of death, and the world begins to unravel. 

“Hurry, they are waiting—”

“—you want me to do it!”

The accusation lies between them, thorny and harsh, and Yeshua, oh, Yeshua—a ragged shadow of himself—does not deny it. Helpless anger writ large across his face, he says, “liar,” says, “Judas,” and then he says nothing at all.

Judas feels the touch of his hand on his cheek, soft as a whisper, heavy with all the things they cannot find the words to say. The ache rises in his heart, a match for the sorrow in Yeshua’s eyes.

“I don’t understand—” 

He runs.

 

...

 

_Must you betray me with a kiss?_

 

...

 

It’s lonely on the mountain.

The wind sighs and moans. The bark is rough beneath his fingers; the rope is much the same. One loop, two. Three. It has to hold.

Silver rattles in the pouch at his waist, thirty pieces, rattling, rattling. _Blood money_ , they’ll call it, these coins he will never spend. He tears the pouch loose with shaking hands. The money spills out into the dust, gleaming and cruel in the harsh afternoon light. The sky is endlessly blue. 

The bark bites deep into his palms, splinters worming beneath his skin. There is a sound like crying; Judas, or the wind, or the dry wood protesting as he climbs. It is a lifeless, long-dead thing, alone on the mountain. No leaves, no fruit. No garden to be found, not here.

“You’ve murdered me,” he screams, and cannot tell if it is prayer or condemnation. “Murdered me, murdered me, murdered us both!” Even now, he burns. 

The wind is still blowing, thick now with the scent of blood. The reek fills his lungs and hazes his vision, choking, the world painted red and red, so red—

_Tell me_ , he thinks as a cry rings out from the valley, darkness closing in. _Tell me, Yeshua. How did we end up here?_

_Why—_

 

...

 

He is clean again, and bloodless. Made whole once more, and still nothing has changed: Yeshua does not answer. 

**Author's Note:**

> a few quick notes: 
> 
> your letter did say your favorite version is the concept album, but i'm most familiar with the '73 movie, so that's the canon i went with for the fic. there's just something about carl anderson, man. i blame him and his incredible acting for the whole...vaguely blasphemous mess this turned into. 
> 
> also, it was _super weird_ writing 'jesus this' and 'jesus that', so that's why i ended up swapping it for yeshua. however! if it bugs you, just let me know— i can switch the names out, no problem.
> 
> finally, i just want to let you know that i had a wonderful time writing this fic! i hope the end result is something you can enjoy :)
> 
> happy yuletide!


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